friendship

Last November my closest friend here in Lincoln moved to Connecticut. Even now, nearly three months later, the impact of Deidra’s move still reverberates. I feel a quiet pang when I spot a car that looks like hers pass by. I notice my stubborn avoidance of the street where she and Harry lived, my reluctance to revisit one of our favorite lunch spots.

I miss the favorite sweater kind of easiness and comfort of my in-person friendship with Deidra. When my husband and I wanted to invite someone over for dinner or drinks on the patio, Deidra and Harry were our go-to couple. Our friendship had grown to a place where we didn’t have to work so hard at it. They were like family, without the baggage.

Back when our kids were preschoolers, Brad and I hosted dinner parties and gatherings with lots of different friends at our house pretty regularly. Without family nearby, we didn’t have easy babysitting options, so we did the next best thing: we invited friends to hang out with us in our home.

We were part of a supper club with two other couples who also had young children. We invited Brad’s colleagues or mine over for summer barbeques and winter potlucks. We belonged to a small group with members of our church, and even when we weren’t meeting weekly as part of a Bible study, we got together with our group for fun. We socialized with other parents of young children – women I had met in a local Mom’s Club and their husbands and kids.

As the years passed and our kids got older, Brad and I gradually stopped hosting dinner gatherings. For a long time I didn’t even notice the shift. It happened organically as our kids and our friends’ kids enrolled in different schools and pursued different interests.

Some of our core communities and friendships shifted into new spaces. Others gradually faded away altogether.

New friendships were forged along the sidelines of the soccer field or on the sidewalk at the periphery of the elementary school as we waited for the dismissal bell. Though we liked these new friends and enjoyed the opportunities we had to connect, most of these relationships didn’t grow beyond the sidelines or the sidewalks. When soccer season ended or school let out for the summer, months passed before I crossed paths with most of these women again.

I guess what I am saying is that I miss the friendships and connections that go deeper than small talk on the sidelines. I miss the rich scent of a home-cooked meal wafting into the cold night air when we open the door to greet our guests. I miss gathering around the table, candles flickering. I miss retiring to the living room after the meal, dessert plates balanced on our knees. I miss rich conversation and laughing until my stomach hurts.

On one hand, this is the season of life we are in right now – shuttling older kids to tennis lessons and cross country meets and math tutoring. Attending orchestra concerts, cheering on sidelines, proofreading English essays, dropping a carload of boys off at the movies.

Life is full. Life is busy.

At the same time, though, I think “this season,” “this busyness,” might also be an excuse I’ve allowed myself. In the same way I’ve become complacent about chasing curiosity, I’ve also grown complacent in pursuing rich, meaningful friendships.

This kind of relationship-building takes work. True community requires intentionality. Authentic connection that goes beyond sideline small talk requires time, trust, and a willingness of be vulnerable.

Inviting someone into your home to sit around your table invites intimacy on a deeper level – even more so, perhaps than meeting in a restaurant or another public space.Sometimes I think I choose sideline small talk because it’s easy, non-threatening, and doesn’t take much work.

I am lucky to have had (and still have) true friendship with Deidra. But that relationship and its shift into new territory these last couple of months has taught me something important. Life is full and busy, to be sure. But it’s neither too full nor too busy to pursue deeper, more fulfilling friendships that go beyond sideline small talk.

This year, I’m going to get back into the habit of practicing hospitality – of inviting new friends and old into my home and around my table. It’s a small step in the journey toward forming and growing authentic relationships, but it’s an important one – one I’ve neglected for far too long. And as a friend wisely noted, it might turn out that my two themes for the year — curiosity and hospitality — will go quite nicely together, each complementing the other.

This post is Part 2 in my two-part Themes for 2018 series. Two weeks ago I wrote about the Year of Curiosity, which you can read here.

When she called to say they’d be stopping by for a few minutes on Labor Day, I didn’t give it a second thought. Deidra and Harry often pop in for a quick visit. After eight years, these friends are more like family now. We’ve vacationed together, shared dozens of meals together, worshipped together, grieved together, and celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays together.

So when they sat on our living room sofa that Labor Day and told us they were moving 1,500 miles away, I admit, my world turned upside down.

They didn’t stay long. I waved from the front door as they walked down the driveway, and then I turned to my husband and burst into tears.

I cried off and on for three days. And when I wasn’t crying, I was surprised to find I was angry. Turns out, I’d written a whole story of the future of our friendship in my head, and suddenly, there was a whole new plotline.

Frankly, I didn’t much like this new story. I vacillated between resenting Harry for accepting a new job halfway across the country, shaking my fist at God for writing a plot that didn’t match mine, and mourning what felt like the end of a friendship I treasured.

Deidra and I met online eight years ago. I don’t remember who stumbled on whose blog first, but I do remember it didn’t take long for us to realize how much we have in common. We are both writers. We are both transplants to Nebraska. We both have two children. We both love dogs, the beach, and shoes.

As the months and years passed, we moved from the light conversations of a beginning friendship into deeper terrain. Deidra is black and I am white, and in the early days of our relationship, I was keenly aware of our cultural differences. But because we grounded our friendship in what we had in common and allowed our relationship to grow naturally at its own pace, we were later able to step gently into the places where we are different. We didn’t always share the exact same viewpoint, and that was okay. We gave each other space and grace.

Last week I stopped by Deidra and Harry’s house one last time. The moving truck stretched along the curb out front. The rugs were rolled up in the living room, and there were boxes stacked in the corner. Deidra and I embraced in the empty dining room, but with the movers bustling about, there was, thankfully, no time for tears or dramatic goodbyes. “See ya,” I said, waving as I walked out the front door.

Still, last Saturday I awoke with a pit in my stomach and a lump in my throat, knowing Deidra and Harry had departed Lincoln earlier that morning, bound for their new home in Connecticut. All day, as I went about my chores and errands, I felt a heaviness in my body and heart that I can only describe as grief.

The truth is, I still don’t like this new twist in our story, because I know that, in some ways, our friendship is bound to change. Yet I also know that the reason I feel such sorrow is because Deidra and I have something rare and precious. Friendships like ours only come around once or twice in a lifetime, and not even 1,500 miles between us can get in the way of that.

After three months of driving around town with a burned-out left tail light on my mini-van, I finally got it repaired. I don’t know what took me so long. It was just one thing after another – the holidays, a trip to Minnesota (in our other car, the one with both tail lights working), a looming book deadline, soccer games and choir rehearsal and “Mom, I’m out of clean clothes” again. I know, I know. No excuses really. It’s not safe to drive around with a broken tail light. I know this. But I did it anyway.

There’s a reason I’m telling you about my broken tail light. A few weeks ago my friend Shannon mentioned something in a blog post that caught my eye. Turns out, her son had been driving around with a burned-out tail light too. The difference was, his tail light was broken for less than 36 hours before he got it fixed, but in those 36 hours, he was pulled over by the local police four times. The fourth time ended with him sitting on the curb while the officers searched his car for drugs, of which there were none.

“It doesn’t matter that he’s never had a drug charge,” Shannon wrote. “What matters is that he’s black. He’s young. He has ‘that look.'”

That declaration stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly I understood, in a real, in-my-face kind of way, what white privilege is and exactly how I benefit from it. That young black man and I committed the exact same infraction. Robert paid a price (the inconvenience of being pulled over four times; the humiliation of sitting on the curb while the officers searched his car for the non-existent drugs; the hassle of having to get his tail light fixed ASAP) because he is black and male. I didn’t because I am white and female.

Now you might argue that there are other factors in involved. And it’s true — I’m a 45-year-old woman. I have noticeably gray hair. I drive a mini-van, the be-all and end-all of mom-mobiles.

You might argue that you, too, have been stopped for a broken tail light. Or your son has. Or your neighbor has. And you’re white (or your son or your neighbor is). So what’s my point?

My point is, even if you, as a white person, have been stopped for a broken tail light, I doubt you were stopped four times. In less than 36 hours. And if you have been stopped for a broken tail light, I doubt you were asked to step out of the car and sit on the curb as the traffic whizzed past and everyone craned their necks to look at the spectacle of flashing blue lights as the officer searched your car for drugs.

I drove my car for three months with a broken tail light, and I was not stopped once. I had the luxury of taking my sweet time getting it fixed. That’s called white privilege.

My friend’s black son drove his car with a broken tail light for 36 hours and was pulled over four times. He couldn’t wait until it was convenient for him to get his car fixed. He had to do it immediately, for fear of getting pulled over a fifth time. That’s called racism.

And for those of us who are churchy, religious types, it’s also called a sin. Racism is a sin.

We don’t think of racism as a sin, do we? We think of racism as wrong, and bad, and something that other, bad people participate in – red-necky type people who use words that begin with the letter “n” and the like. But most of us white people don’t think racism has really much to do with us. We don’t think of racism as a sin because that would implicate us. Defining racism as a sin suggests that we might play a role in racism too.

I’m glad the ELCA is taking steps to confront racism and our role in it. My denomination of four million people is 96% white. Racism and white privilege and what we can or should do about either isn’t exactly on our radar. But it should be and it needs to be, because of this:

“You are the body of Christ, and each of you is a part of it…If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27 & 26).

What Paul declared 2,000 years ago is still true today. We are all part of one body, the Body of Christ, and when one part of that body suffers, we all suffer.

Friends, part of the Body of Christ is suffering badly, has been suffering badly for hundreds of years. Our black sisters and brothers are suffering terribly, and we are looking the other way. We are doing nothing. We don’t even notice what’s happening because we don’t have to – we have the privilege of not noticing.

Case in point:

My church broadcast Bishop Eaton’s “Confronting Racism” live webcast last Thursday evening. It was advertised in the worship bulletin for our three services the Sunday before and on the church website, and members were invited to attend a viewing of the webcast and then stay for a brief discussion afterwards.

Out of the more than 4,000 members of my church, 11 people attended the live webcast; 9 stayed for the discussion.

For the record, my church has a highly active membership. More than 700 youth and children are involved in Sunday school, confirmation and youth ministry. More than 600 people regularly participate in adult education opportunities such as small groups and classes. More than 650 people are actively involved in global and local mission work in Honduras, Tanzania, Lincoln and other local communities. The garden on our church grounds that is planted and maintained by church volunteers provides more than five tons of food annually to the local Food Bank. 25% of all financial giving by members to the church supports local and global ministries. I could go on.

What I’m saying is that these people are faithful, loving, obedient servants of Christ. They do good work. They help lots of people. They make a huge impact on those in need, both in our community and beyond. They love God, and they love their neighbors.

And yet clearly, the problem of racism is simply not registering. Racism in America may be seen as a problem generally…but it’s not seen as a problem for us — for upper-middle class white people attending a white church and, for the most part, living in white suburbia.

I get it. I do! Let me say this straight up: two years ago, I would not have been among the 11 people who attended the “Confronting Racism” webcast. I probably would have noticed the announcement in the bulletin, but I would have immediately dismissed it as irrelevant to me – to my world, to my family, to my personal spiritual growth. I would not have given the idea of attending that racism webcast a second thought.

So what changed?

Several factors play into this metamorphosis, but one factor stands out in particular: I became good friends with a black woman. We’ve been friends for six years, but only in the last two years or so have I begun to see the world through her eyes. I’ve seen how I benefit from the color of my skin and how she is inhibited by others because of the color of hers. I’ve listened to her and heard her. I’ve begun to recognize some of my own mistakes, my own prejudices, my own biases. I’ve begun to see not only that racism exists, but that I play a role in its existence as well.

You might be rolling your eyes, and I don’t blame you. I know it sounds silly. I have one black friend, after all, and here I am, ranting and raving and all in your grill on the subject of racism. It’s a little know-it-allish, I realize.

But I’m not going to apologize or feel ashamed about the fact that one friendship with one person of color has impacted me and changed me so dramatically. Because the truth is, that’s what love does. When you love someone, you want to make everything good for them. When you love someone, you want that person to have all the good things in life that you have too. I love my friend, and I want to help make the world a better place alongside her. It really is that simple.

I don’t really know how to end this blog post, and it’s so long, the two of you who are still with me are undoubtedly thinking For the love of all mankind, just end it already! In a way, not wrapping it up is the perfect way to end it, because the truth is, racism isn’t all wrapped up, not by a long shot. I’m not cool with my 96% white church. I’m not cool with 11 people out of 4,000 attending a discussion about racism. I’m not cool with a young black man getting pulled over four times in 36 hours for a broken tail light. Most of all, I’m not cool with my own complacency anymore.

I raise my arm, unfurl my fingers halfway. I’m about to wave, and then I stop.

It’s a little red car, just like hers, but it’s not my friend Sarah driving by. She moved to Tennessee this summer, but I still see her everywhere.

It feels a little bit like grief, this loss – like when you spot your loved one across the pyramid of Golden Delicious in the grocery store or dashing out of the post office as you pull into the parking lot. You realize, in a split second, that it’s not her, of course it can’t be her. But your heart hoped anyway, before your head slammed the door shut.

Sarah was my closest friend here in Nebraska. We both moved here the same month and for the same reason. My husband and her husband at the time were new professors at the local liberal arts college. We both had tiny infants. Neither of us knew another soul in this strange land of big sky, hot wind and sparse trees.

Who knew one person could make all the difference.

The hard truth is, I’m lonely these days.

“I have no friends!” I lamented to Brad last weekend. It’s not true, of course. I do have friends. Brad pointed this out; he named them for me one-by-one. And yet, I still feel it, this deep loneliness, an emptiness in the bottom of my gut.

I must be doing something wrong, I reason. I must be doing something wrong to feel this way, to feel so lonely even as I tick off the names of my friends on two hands.

Part of it is my job, of course. I write at home, Josie curled at my feet, snoring, tail tucked under her hind legs. Outside my window the wind whips the river birch leaves into a maelstrom on the back patio. After I drop Rowan off at school, I go all day without speaking to another human being, until school pick-up later that afternoon. Writing is, by necessity, a lonely job.

I also think this particular season of life has something to do with the loneliness, too. Our boys are older now — ten and fourteen — and busier than ever. One activity swirls into the next and the next and the next. Who has time for deep and meaningful conversations on a regular basis when there’s soccer practice and viola lessons and dentist appointments and parent-teacher conferences and how did their pants become high-waters all of a sudden and how can we possibly need dog food again already?

My friendships don’t unfurl over coffee or Cabernet anymore. They are squeezed into a frenzied Voxer, a text message dashed off during a red light, a distracted chat with one eye on the soccer field.

“It’s just where we are right now,” my sister offers. I’m on the phone with her as I walk the dog. On the other end of the line, she’s helping her young son get ready for bed. She feels it, too, this loneliness, this yawning void, this yearning for deeper connection. But she’s more optimistic than I am. “It’ll get better; look at mom and dad. They have plenty of time for meaningful relationships now.”

True. But I’m 45. Seventy feels like a long time to wait.

This is one of the many, many qualities I appreciated (still appreciate – she lives far away, but we are still friends!) about Sarah. She made the time. Real time, in spite of the Charybdis that surely threatened to pull her under, too. Coffee and scones at Meadowlark on a Saturday morning; black bean soup and a hunk of crusty bread at Panera on a Wednesday night; sweating glasses of iced tea in wicker rocking chairs on the front porch, the cicadas sawing the dusk.

Let’s get together this week or next, she’d text. Do you have time for coffee? What day is good for you?

Real, sustaining, gratifying friendships don’t just happen, it seems. They take effort, intention.

And that intention, I’m beginning to realize, starts with me.

Sarah taught me that, and she modeled it well.

I always relied on Sarah to make the first move. Left to my own devices, I’d be in my pajamas by 6 p.m., reading glasses perched on the bridge of my nose. Sarah knew that; she gently pulled me out of my routine and out of my shell. She extended the invitation; I said yes.

I think perhaps it’s time for me to slip on the shoes Sarah wore for so long, to extend the invitation to deeper friendship with intention. For some crazy reason this feels a little bit ridiculously hard, but I’m realizing, now more than ever, that it’s worth the effort. I know what to say, because Sarah has already given me the words:

Let’s get together this week or next. What day is good for you?

So tell me…how do you stay connected in meaningful ways with your friends? What do you do to stave off loneliness?

A few weeks ago the good people at (in)courage asked Deidra Riggs to participate in their Better Together series, a conversation about what it really looks like in real time and in real life to love our neighbors as ourselves and to walk around in someone else’s shoes.

Deidra then turned around and asked me if I would be willing to join the Better Together conversation and talk a bit with her about our “cross-cultural friendship.” I didn’t hesitate to answer a resounding YES! This is a topic Deidra and I have talked about more than once, and I was eager to share some of our thoughts with a broader audience.

So we posted a question on Facebook — If you were to ask us a question about navigating and nurturing a cross-cultural friendship, what would you want to know? — and then together we addressed some of the great questions we received. The results of that conversation are over at (in)courage as part of their Better Together series. I’d love for you to pour yourself a warm cuppa, pull up a chair, and join us over there.

Primary Sidebar

Living out faith in the everyday is no joke. If you’re anything like me, some days you feel full of confidence and hope, eager to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the world. Other days…not so much.

Let me say straight up: I wrestle with my faith. Most days I feel a little bit like Jacob, wrangling his blessing out of God. And most days I’m okay with that. I believe God made me a questioner and a wrestler for a reason, and I believe one of those reasons is so that I can connect more authentically with others.